The Symbol

The Symbol

The symbol of psychiatry

Is The Centipede

Lying on his back in grass

That grows inside a ditch.

A hundred senseless legs

Flailing helplessly at last.

The centipede was asked

How he walked and he

Because he didn't know

Watched his feet, became confused,

Stumbled, tripped and fell

Into the ditch,

Where he's discovered now.

And in his head unweeping -

Too confounded now to weep

Or think at all –

Mill a million pieces

Of misbegotten thoughts

Criticizing every

Near-completed act,

Snuffed in action.

Hell for therapists

Is a pit of burning words.

And every clause is theirs.

Criticism kills.

And shrinks kill absolutely.

 

What Happened

Once I was a poet,

Mellow and naïve.

Genius though inchoate.

Strangers don't deceive.

My psyche blew apart.

My thinking went astray.

The feelings in my heart

Simply went away.

The verses I wrote then

Now I can't create.

My poesy is gone.

I'm living out my fate.

My poesy is gone.

With much too much to say

I keep writing on.

What crap I write today!

The Gift

He handed me his heart

And all that appertained.

I could have answered yes

And had it for an hour.

Instead I fell in love.

I'll have him til I die.

 

Bukowski

The youth adore Bukowski -

The beauty of a fart -

Almost like Genet -

Beaten by his daddy,

He took it out on art.

The art that is today.

Tout le monde

Everyone in town

And on the north side of Visalia

Can tell you just exactly where I live.

Day and night for years

They've come in legions to my home,

Many tattoos marching,

And nothing is forbidden.

Sartre's right.

This is hell.

Anyone who reads my verse

And doesn't weep for me

Has a heart of stone.

My heart is dead.

 

The Demon There

I am 67 and

Beginning to observe

People that I pass in public

On the street aren't looking

For any provocation

To jump out and me

And hit me.

That is me.

A Song

Really down inside of me I'm dead.

Jacqui killed me many years ago.

Still a little happiness comes through

When we are relaxed, and I'm with you.

All the poetry I never read

Will wash away with things I'll never know.

My verse is good again. But I am old.

My songs are soft to touch, like purple mold.